North Carolina State University Athletics
PEELER: Kuhn More Prepared To Step Up
11/17/2008 12:00:00 AM | Football
Editor’s note: The ACC announced Monday that game time for the regular-season ending game between NC State and Miami on Nov. 29 will not be announced until next Sunday. The game will begin at either noon or 3:30 p.m. on a network that will be determined at a later date.
BY TIM PEELER
RALEIGH, N.C. What sophomore defensive end Markus Kuhn has needed since he signed to play football for NC State is a little time.
Time to learn more about the game of college football. Time to absorb all the things he has taken in since arriving last fall from his native Germany. Time to improve, without facing the pressure of being a starter.
He never really got that opportunity last season, when he arrived from Weinheim, Germany, one of the ACC’s more intriguing recruits. Rarely has an international player with no American high school experience ever signed to be a position player for a major Division I-A program.
Kuhn’s base of knowledge came from his years of playing with a German club team with a bunch of Army brats he grew up with and from watching a little bit of American football on television and in person on family vacations.
But, two games into last season, because of a flurry of injuries on the defensive front, he was a regular for the Wolfpack defense, a true freshman trying to execute defensive plays that weren’t even called in his native language.
Midway through the season, he switched from defensive tackle, his natural position, to defensive end.
Kuhn who has played in all 10 games and recorded 18 tackles, one sack and seven quarterback hurries in 2008 started in the season-opener against South Carolina, but was replaced by junior college transfer Shea McKeen in the season’s second game.
But McKeen, who is tied for second on the team with 2.5 sacks and fourth with five tackles for loss, suffered a broken ankle late in the second quarter of Saturday’s 21-17 victory over Wake Forest at Carter-Finley Stadium and will miss the rest of the season. That opens the door for a more-prepared Kuhn to step into the lineup, with sophomore Audi Augustin as his backup, for Saturday’s rivalry game against North Carolina in Chapel Hill.
“It has helped me this year being able to watch a player with more experience in front of me,” Kuhn said. “Defensive end is still pretty much a new position for me. I played defensive tackle in Germany and until about halfway through last year. Watching Shea has helped me know what to look for and make me a better football player.”
Obviously, Kuhn was disappointed to lose his starting job, but even he admits that it may have been a blessing in disguise. Now, he will try to contribute to a defense that has been particularly good at stopping opponents in critical situations the last two games. The Wolfpack stopped Duke on four fourth-down attempts and stuffed Wake Forest twice in the red zone.
“I always want to play,” Kuhn said. “But Shea is a good player who made a lot of good plays. I look at him and see what he is doing and try to step up my game.”
Ideally, NC State second-year coach Tom O’Brien would have liked to red-shirt Kuhn either last year or this year, but a lack of depth and experience at defensive end made that impossible. Still, he has been impressed with what he has seen, especially in the Wolfpack’s last two games.
“I think he has learned a lot,” O’Brien said of the sophomore from Germany. “He played extremely well when he had to go in there against Wake Forest. He is a kid who really doesn’t have a reservoir of knowledge about football. He was flying by the seat of his pants last year.
“We were trying as hard as we could to catch him up in the spring. He is a really a smart kid who has played in every game and been a big part of our rotation.”
And Kuhn has picked up on what this weekend’s game means to his fellow teammates and Wolfpack fans. But he also knows there is even more at stake Saturday in Kenan Stadium than just bragging rights.
“I know it’s a big rivalry,” he said. “But we also play every week for the opportunity to have an extra game at the end of the season. We want to keep winning, make it to 6-6 and get to a bowl game.”
You may contact Tim Peeler at tim_peeler@ncsu.edu.
